


Worldbuilding

by Anchanted_One



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Concepts, Don’t copy to another site, Exposition, Gen, world building
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-24 23:59:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17714159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anchanted_One/pseuds/Anchanted_One
Summary: In this segment I explain concepts, or reinvent them, in order to write into my own story. Whether Force Powers, the Force itself,  Light and Dark, Hyperspace, planets and systems (including ones i'm going to be making up), I'll aim to wwrite about them here





	1. The Force: The Light and the Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Exploring the Force, the Light and the Dark

**The Force**

  
In Newtonian Physics, a force is an agent that when applied externally to an object at rest, causes it to accelerate. It is an interaction that allows anything from atoms to stars the ability to affect its surroundings. I don't why to define The Force as something else _entirely_ , just more vast in scope; more metaphysical. It moves. It connects. It binds.

The Force is the energy field that binds and unites all things in the galaxy. Regardless of living or inanimate, small or vast, weak or mighty, the past, present and future, or different possibilities of reality; the Force pervades all. And anything that has a will can have a sense of this intricate, sprawling entity. Some can only catch them in glimpses and premonitions... whereas others can be taught to always be aware of its presence. And still fewer can be taught to assert their will upon the Force. They that do can be trained to become Jedi, Sith, or any comparative group.

The Force itself though... it can never be truly comprehended. Not even by those that have the wisdom and experience of centuries. Of millennia.

For a starting point, though, it holds all the particles in an area together. And yet keeps them apart so that they don't fuse into something more- they do not lose what makes them individual building blocks of something bigger.

The Force not only connects these small particles to their neighbors, but also to distant particles on the other edge of the galaxy.

Everything is connected. Nothing is inconsequential. It all matters to the Force.

 

**Light and Dark**

But what of Light and Dark? Are they invention of an order of monks, or could there truly be more to it than just austerity?  
When we look at what the Jedi do, and what the Sith do, the result doesn't seem to vary all that much, other than one side using serenity and the other emotion. Except... what if it does?  
The Jedi use the Force to affect things only in their normal state. When they see an object, they lift it, move it, put it down. There is no bending, or stretching, or other deformation.  
But the Sith... Aaah a difference seems to arise. Deformation of a body- that seems to be of the Dark Side. You squash or stretch. You crush or rip. You rend, you tear... by doing so the Sith attempt to affect the object's physical properties, even destroying it directly with the Force.  
That is why Powers like Choking or Crushing are inherently of the Dark Side. And why moving in harmony with the natural state is Light. It might also be why Sidious remarks that the Dark Side grants power that some may call unnatural.  
When Satele attacks Malgus, she is gathering some air into a projectile- but she doesn't change anything about the air itself. Or the rocks. She just picks it up as it is, from around her. She doesn't use the Force itself to directly strike Malgus, or crush him against the rocks. It is this bullet that she is moving.  
But Malgus on the other hand. He Chokes his enemies, he Forces a charge into the environment to create a potential difference, and therefore, lightning. All of this uses the Force to change the world around them directly.  
This is the main difference as I see it between Light and Dark. And neither is inherently good or evil, it just so happens that Jedi are as a group, better people than the Sith. The Sith, after all, were born among a people for whom only the fittest survived and only the mighty could be free. Furthermore, the Sith don't just use an emotion once and let it go, they nurture it fanatically for years, allowing them to become diseased. They dwell, they obsess. They love holding on to grudges and vendettas because of the readily available power source, but do not care about the effect it has on their minds, their personalities.  
As an aside, a Jedi can Call Lightning from clouds or batteries or other charged sources, the way Yoda's ghost did in The Last Jedi. After all, they are using charge that already exist in their environment, rather than introducing one.

But the Force works as so much more than just a physical entity; it has a will- it has an understanding: both of the person using it, and the target. Without the Force having a will- and perhaps a sense of humor- of its own, the more magical aspects of the Force would be impossible.

For example, Healing. Force Healers do not have to oversee their work at a molecular level. They will the Force to a particular result- to speed up healing of certain cells, to slow infection or blood loss, and the Force responds. Illusions, likewise, work by affecting chemicals in the brain.

The intricate super interconnectedness of all things also allows Telepathy, or projection. 

Another magical aspect of the Force is in rituals. The Force can imbue certain items with new properties- properties that can aid a Force-wielder in a certain task. Months, years of study can be spent in figuring out how to do some task with the Force, and this ritual can be summarized by imbuing objects with certain properties. Oftentimes in the modern day, the point of a ritual is lost, with the steps being more important than the knowledge of how something works. 

This is why we have rituals imagined by Tulak Hord and Marka Ragnos, or even the soon-to-be Emperor Tenebrae. They create artifacts that function as shortcuts. Without these artifacts the likes of Zash would have to spend years more on creating their own versions of the function the artifact speeds up. And that involves decades more of research and reinvention, none of which guarantees success. Doing something wrong can have consequences, which is why Wielders prefer to use a spelled-out process from their fore-bearers. 


	2. What Are Shatterpoints

The Force is in everything, from the smallest atoms to the largest stars. And they are all bound to each other. This binding occurs between individual particles, and between large bodies, and everything in between. It is all interconnected.

This interconnectedness can be seen through the Sight.

The Force Flows through each object, between objects, and around them; it forms a tapestry of trillions upon trillions of interacting Flows. As they interact, the Currents get pulled and compressed, and there are points on the tapestry where the surface gets brittle. If you think of the surface as glass, then cracks appear here. Apply pressure on these points, and the cracks start to spread, and grow, until eventually they shatter.

And since all things are so intricately connected, affecting one node can have an impact on the system at large. The points that affect the largest areas, the most number of other nodes, are Shatterpoints.

They represent threats and opportunities without allowing any way to distinguish which is which; and that is what makes this Sense a sardonic gift. Not only can you not tell threats from opportunities, you cannot tell how you must respond to them either. A master would strike a Shatterpoint not by using raw power, but through subtlety. By saying the right words, by influencing the right people.

In this case, maybe you want to think of it as a web of stacked dominoes. There are some dominoes whose fall could influence the falls of multiple other limbs in the web. By reinforcing these, you could halt a collapse. Or you can weaken them, and ensure it.

But a lot relies on instincts. There are those who are masters of affecting these points but cannot see them, such as Sheev Palpatine, Darth Sidious. And there are those who can see them but lack the training to know what to do. Like Mace Windu.

Take this scene from the Revenge of the Sith novelization.

Anakin stumbles into the room Mace is in. He looks panicked and shaken. Mace reaches for his gift to see what has happened to him, but what he sees stuns him. Anankin doesn't HAVE Shatterpoints. He IS a Shatterpoint. And everything depends on him. Mace decides to speak to him with the care he would take while defusing a Galaxy-destroying bomb, and asks him what happened. And Anakin tells him. "Palpatine is Sidious. He is a Sith Lord."  
With that, Mace drops all caution, rudely tells Anakin to sit in the Council without telling him that he, Anakin, is so eaten up by pain that having him in the confrontation is a bad idea- he's a loose cannon. If he had taken the time, he could have convinced him that the most courageous thing Anakin could have done was to stay out of this, and trust Mace.

Instead he rudely snubs Anakin yet again, demanding a trust that he has not really earned. And Anakin, so volatile and confused at this point, is inches from a complete breakdown under pressure.

Now we come to Mace vs Palpatine, on the balcony. Mace has him disarmed, backed up against a corner, and as the Sith unleashes his final stand-- that Lightning-- Mace searches for his Shatterpoint and is startled by what he finds. His biggest Shatterpoint is the utter trust he has... in Anakin!  
All this time while Mace has been looking at these points, using him to just tell him "this is important, this is not," Palpatine has been learning how to stoke them for years--even decades-- to get the result he wants. In this instance, Anakin does what Palpatine wanted by taking off Mace Windu's Arm and saving his life.  
But look farther back than that-- In Legends only, Darth Plagueis along with Sidious-- who was then his apprentice-- pushed the interstellar commerce powers that were the Trade Federation, the Techno Union, Commerce Guild and others to push for more and more powers. It was through their maneuverings that the members were granted the right to own Droid armies, and combat ready Starships. They brought these guys together, along with other supplementary groups like the Intergalactic Banking Clan, into almost one cohesive side. They used a single minor trade dispute in a remote planet called Naboo to set the stage for a Galactic war.  
It was Palpatine who pushed Sifo-Dyas (book only) to create the Clone Army, and plant seeds of doubt into Dooku's mind. Seeds that would burst into life and mature quickly following his former apprentice Qui-gonn's death.

While watching the Attack of the Clones, if we take a step back we see how strange it all is-.

⦁ Failed Assassination attempt leaves mysterious clues that point to a warrior in Mandalorian Armor, and a location which was deleted from the famed Jedi Archives- signs of a cover up.

⦁ When Obi-wan follows the clues to Kamino, he finds the Mandalorian... along with a massive Clone Army. It has been built in secret, without Senate authority, or Jedi Council's knowledge. An army has been created for the republic. But why? And for use against what?.

⦁ Kenobi tracks the Mando-- now identified as Jango Fett-- to Geonosis, where that previous question is answered. The Separtists are finalizing plans to formalize their alliance and declare war on the undefended Republic. They have a massive army, one that they Republic could not hoped to have fought, unless they had a secret army of their own stashed away somewhere...

⦁ Kenobi has arrived in time for the Jedi and the Senate to know what's about to happen, but with little time to prepare. They have no choice but to use the Clone Army that has been discovered. Under ordinary circumstances there would have been an investigation. A big one. But faced with imminent war, they are forced to act- Immediately!  
⦁ The Separtists are businessmen. They know that it's expensive to fight a war. Their armies were meant to intimidate, not for actual use (Is that why the droids are so dumb? roger, roger methinks!) but they can't back out now. They are committed to this course of action.

⦁ All of this has been found out by following the trail of one man. Jango Fett. And the trail left by one of his few botched missions.

Putting all of these details together, it is impossible to see these as coincidences. They were planned. Sidious orchestrated a war and launched it precisely to his wishes by nurturing and unleashing Shatterpoints for decades.

  
It is in this exact manner that Palpatine befriended Anakin, earned his trust over a decade, encouraged him subtly to rebel against the yoke of the Jedi Council, all of whom treated Anakin like a rabid wolf. He showed Anakin- quietly- the flaws and corruption in the Republic. How it was a large, ageing infected beast. And get this- Palpatine never spoke and untrue word to Anakin. That's a shocker.

  
So coming back to the balcony, where Mace is facing down Sidious... When it comes down to it, it was a no-brainer for Anakin; Mace, or Palpatine? Sith, or Jedi? Republic, or Empire? Ha, Mace has treated him as trash all his life, while Palpatine has been good to him. In the end he was just manipulating him, but it counts... Jedi are not all they are made out to be, but they are the good guys? Uh, maybe... but the Order as a whole is a strongarm for the Senate. Nothing more.

So he is truly caught on what to do. It all hinged on just one thing-- Padme. He who can give Anakin happiness with Padme, owns him. And Palpatine has that covered too- he knows what Anakin has been dreaming-- possibly he was the one showing these visions to him to get him unstable. And he has promised a way to save her from her demise.  
This is the genius in Palpatine's grand design. And it proves that you don't have to see them to exploit shatterpoints. It proves that being able to see them means squat.  
But HAVING them, in a character, is an interesting lens to see how they make their decisions!

And this is why I have chosen to give Arro Ritaren his gift. I hope to give him a different view on how or why he is doing something, and an additional factor for him to agonize over.


End file.
